


Special 3 - A Bump At the Crossroad

by stgjr



Series: "The Power of a Name" Series 3 - "Time Lord Penitent" [26]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Multi-Fandom, Original Work, Star Trek
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Multiple Crossovers, Multiverse, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-19 13:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11314191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stgjr/pseuds/stgjr
Summary: While Liara enjoys her vacation, our narrator heads off to do something more exciting just to get more than he bargained for when his TARDIS collides with an interuniversal starship.(Crossover with "Undiscovered Frontier" Multiverse series)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on June 6th, 2015.
> 
> (Note: This takes place before Episode 1-05 of the "Undiscovered Frontier" series.)

  
After unexpected adventures on ocean planets and polluted slums in a city called Midgar and a bizarre Earth where beastmen roamed and quantum probability itself seemed to come down on the side of whomever had the most bold behavior, I finally got Liara off to her vacation.  
  
And _it was boring_.  
  
I decided to leave her to the well-deserved rest and go check up on things elsewhere. Abby had indicated interest in another special vacation, for instance, and there were a few places I knew of that she had yet to see.  
  
After begging off another day at the poolside and returning to my TARDIS, I ran a few checks and thought of a few destinations to take Abby to. As I considered her reactions to the Black Star Cluster of the Jey'miot Galaxy Core, I grabbed the TARDIS lever and pulled.  
  
_**VWORP VWORP... VWEEEEEERKKK!!!!**_  
  
As the engine changed from her normal wonderful sound to a horrible shriek, the TARDIS shook violently beneath me. Sparks erupted from beneath the engine and the lights flickered. A quick status check showed me half of my rooms had been removed from the interior, but I didn't worry much as I was too busy fighting with the TARDIS controls to figure out what had happened. "Oh, that's not good," I muttered. Something had snagged the TARDIS as she shifted along a sixth dimensional line, pulling her across the fifth dimensional barrier, always a tricky thing for the TARDIS to deal with.  
  
I checked to see what was causing this, but couldn't. The TARDIS' systems were going haywire. All I could do was shut her down, materialize, and head out to figure out what was wrong. I pulled back the lever and checked the external sensors. They couldn't tell me much due to damage, but they did tell me I was in a breathable atmosphere, and there were people outside.  
  
I made sure my sonic screwdriver and sonic disruptor were securely in my pocket and on my belt and went to the door.  
  
At least one energy weapon sidearm was pointing at me when I walked out, but mostly I was faced with stares. I looked around, taking in my environment quickly. It was a command deck of some form. In the style of a Starfleet bridge, actually, and it even had Starfleet-style LCARS displays but with some variation to their appearance. A command chair and two flanking chairs in the middle, a station behind, two stations in front that were joined together like a pair of Ls bount together at the bottom. Side stations, two per side, and occupied. There was a bit of smoke in the air and I could see one station was flickering, having recently undergone an electrical overload.  
  
Faces and uniforms... rang bells in my mind. Oh, I recognized the helmsman easily; he closely resembled the helmsman of the last Starfleet ship I had crashed onto. But the others.... The Captain, with his dark brown hair and green eyes, and the matching green eyes on the very attractive blonde First Officer to his right. The tactical officer's suspicious brown eyes and an athletically-muscled build that reminded me a bit of Korra, if she were more of a runner at least. She closely resembled one officer on the port side of the bridge, looking up from the clearly marked science/sensors station, evidently a close family member.  
  
Not just that. A sister. They were sisters.  
  
I knew this. I... didn't remember how, but I knew this.  
  
The girl at sensors was named Cat. Caterina. Bright hazel eyes, cute dimples when she smiled, and an adorably geeky personality.  
  
I knew this... because my TARDIS had adopted her appearance, her likeness, when she sought to speak to me.  
  
She had taken Cat _from my head_.  
  
The Captain of the ship leveled a look at me. He seemed to be contemplating what to do, but only for a moment before he asserted himself. "I'm Captain Robert Dale, Alliance _Starship Aurora_ ," he said. "You are...?"  
  
I swallowed. "Confused, Captain," I answered. " _Incredibly_ confused."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Oi.  
  
This was... tricky.  
  
But not unexpected, I suppose. Though at the time the whole issue of whether I had once been Human or not was clouded to me, and I certainly thought of myself solely as a Time Lord, the fact is I _was_ once Human. And I was something of a creative fellow in some ways. That creativity was where my TARDIS had gotten her preferred appearance, the model for which just so happened to be standing at the science station, staring at me and the TARDIS with bright eyes full of curiosity.  
  
See, this is why I never did something like bring Sir Terry to the Disc, or put Harry and Mr. Butcher in a room together while I watched with a tub of popcorn. It's bad enough to know, intellectually, that sixth-dimensional physics is so spacey-wacey zany that it allows anything to exist somewhere out there in the crazy old infinity of the Multiverse. To be _reminded_ like this, to confront something that I eventually knew to have been my creation, or so I thought? I would rather have several rounds of Matriarch Aethyta's beloved Head Butts, thank you so very much. It doesn't make my head hurt as much.  
  
A quick glance around the bridge confirmed everyone else I expected to see. Captain Dale, of course, with lifelong friend Commander Julia Andreys at his side. The reason I so easily recognized the fellow at the helm was because of who he was; a failed Starfleet cadet named Nicholas Locarno, who closely resembled Tom Paris from the _Voyager_. Beside him, at what I presumed was Operations, was a slightly older fellow, in his mid 30s or so I imagine, that I knew as Jarod. He was known as a Pretender, with a mind so advanced that he could pick up any occupation, any principle, very quickly. About as close as a Human mind can be to a Time Lord and still be Human, frankly.  
  
Seriously, the man picked up warp mechanics in twenty seconds. It took me ten. That's how close he comes to having a Time Lord's mind.  
  
And, of course, the sweet young science officer that my TARDIS thought fit her personality the most; Caterina Delgado, she of the adorable geek shirts who believed there was no new phenomena or even non-phenomenal space object that did not merit a squee of delight.  
  
Plus there was her older, protective older sister Angela, who had truly found her niche as the one who targeted the ship's weapons. Presumably as an outlet to her need to hit things on occasion. Punching bags, sparring partners, and the occasional slaver or lecherous male friend, that sort of thing.  
  
She was also the one _pointing a gun at me_ , which didn't leave me very well-disposed toward her.  
  
At the time, of course, my memories of them were a jumble due to the memetic box in my brain that had locked away my old identity. I wasn't sure how I knew of them, but I did know of them, I even had the strong feeling they were something I had imagined, and I knew a lot of what they were due to fulfill in their own fifth dimensional track. Because, you see, they too had the capability to traverse dimensions, though alien technology they had once discovered.  
  
I would explain more, but that would bog down the story, wouldn't it?  
  
I should add that these thoughts happened in a rather compressed scope of time. Seconds after I said what I said, Julia was already turning to face Caterina. "Cat, get back on station. Find out what's happening."  
  
"Oh... right, right!" She jumped back into her seat.  
  
"Jarod, can you get the jump drive working?", she asked next, looking forward.  
  
He hit a couple of keys on his board, but the only response was a deep negative tone. "It's still not responding."  
  
"Who are you?", Robert asked me. "What is that?"  
  
"I'm..." I rubbed at my forehead. "Sorry. I'm..."  
  
"Wait." Cat looked up from her station. She was consulting the light gray device on her right forearm. "Multidevices", they called them. A cheap man's omnitool; communicator and scanner in one package and some data access functions to go with it. She checked readings on her device's small holo-display. Her eyes widened. "That... blue box you came in. That's got... It's a dimensionally transcendental field, isn't it?! You've got a DT field ship!"  
  
Robert looked at me, or rather past me, into the TARDIS door. A look of surprise came over his face. "That's Darglan technology," he said. his tone a little forced.  
  
And I couldn't help myself at that point. I felt the need to correct him of a fact, or remind him anyway. "Actually, the Darglan had it given to them by my people. I'm a Time Lord." And then I narrowed my eyes. While my memories of what they were to end up doing were still a bit foggy here and there, I knew that meeting a Time Lord would be a bad thing for their personal histories if it happened before a certain time. "What is the date, by the way? For you?"  
  
Robert and Julia exchanged glances. "Which universe calendar?", Julia asked.  
  
I sighed. That was the trouble when dealing with multiversal societies following universes at different temporal points. There was always more than one calendar. "The one you're using for your Allied Systems," I clarified. "In your logs and such."  
  
"April 11th, 2641," Robert answered. "Why?"  
  
"Oh, nothing," I said, feeling a headache coming on. Yes, as I suspected. They were still fairly early in their journeys. They had so much to see, so much to do... and encountering me could muck it all up. "Just.... making sure of where things stand. Anyway, right, we need to figure out what is..."  
  
The ship rocked under us. I gripped the side of the TARDIS door frame to remain standing. Robert and Julia returned to their chairs. "What was that?" Julia looked toward Cat, who was already turning back to her screens.  
  
"Spatial disturbance," Jarod answered. "It came from somewhere within a hundred thousand kilometers. Judging by the patterns, I think another ship just arrived."  
  
"You can't be more precise?", Julia asked.  
  
"I'm afraid not," he answered. "Sensors are working fine, but the spatial disruption around us is interfering with our instruments."  
  
I frowned. That didn't sound good. "Can you get a star reading?", I asked. "Figure out where we are?"  
  
There was a momentary pause. "Good question," Robert agreed. "Jarod? Caterina?"  
  
"I'm not getting any stars," Jarod answered.  
  
There was a rushed breath from sensors. "Because there aren't any," Caterina added. "I.... long range sensors show no signs of any stars. At all."  
  
"That's what I was afraid of..." I sighed. "This is bad."  
  
"You still haven't answered the question," Angel Delgado reminded me, still holding up a pulse pistol.  
  
I blanched. Again, this was all wrong. The crew of the _Aurora_ weren't supposed to meet the Doctor. Not yet, anyway. Encountering me could throw their entire course off track, and given what I remembered of their ultimate cause, the slightest shift caused by meddling Time Lords could spell unmitigated disaster.  
  
And when I say disaster, I mean things like, oh, the results of turning left when one was supposed to turn right. _That_ kind of disaster. Yes, you know what I'm talking about, don't you?  
  
On the other hand, our situation was dire enough that I didn't have much choice. So I sighed. "I have taken the name of the Doctor," I explained.  
  
And they all looked at me. Intently. As if they recognized my name, which was what I realized they had done.  
  
"You're the Doctor," Robert asked. "Because we've heard that name before, and it..."  
  
I frowned. Now that was one enemy I had yet to face. "Well... yes and no," I said, interrupting him. "It's sort of a... title. You act a certain way, do a certain thing, and you're the Doctor. That kind of thing. Now, as much as i'd like to continue this chat, I would really like to find out what our little meeting has caused. And right now, it looks like we caused a rather nasty bubble to form in higher dimensional space-time."  
  
"You mean a pocket of space-time formed inside the trans-dimensional barrier?", Cat asked.  
  
I looked over to her and furrowed my bar. "Well... yes. I suppose that's a good way of explaining it."  
  
She smiled with pride, forming cute dimples... but then her smile became a concerned frown. "Oh, that's bad," she said.  
  
"What is?", Robert asked.  
  
"Our jump point intersected the path of his multi-dimensional ship," Caterina explained. "And because of that, his ship got pulled along with us and disrupted our jump point, causing it to... to sort of collapse on both ends."  
  
"We should be dead, then," Jarod pointed out. "The collapse of the jump point.... once it was done, the tunnel of space-time created would have failed and the ship would have been destroyed."  
  
"Yeah, but that's where the Doctor's ship comes in," Caterina continued. "The DT field interacted with the tunnel of our jump point, creating a pocket of artificial space-time around us."  
  
"So it... saved our lives," Robert said. "Isn't that good?"  
  
"Well... yeah, but it means... it means..." Caterina was clearly searching for a way to explain it.  
  
"....that in the long-term, so to speak, the bubble of space-time will destabilize entire segments of the Multiverse," I finished for her.  
  
"Yeah," Cat agreed. "I mean, you'll get random spatial tears, dimensional displacements, everything. It'll be horrible. And if it destroys the trans-dimensional barrier, it could cause massive space-time collapse."  
  
"I don't like the sound of that," Julia said, rather perturbed. "So how do we fix this? If we get the jump drive working, can we jump again?"  
  
Caterina blanched. "Oh no, no, that would be bad. The jump drive would make the bubble _worse_."  
  
"A warp field could disrupt the pocket of space-time," Jarod suggested. "Of course, that would kill us too."  
  
Robert nodded. "Last resort, then. I'm not blowing up the Multiverse."  
  
"A reasonable decision," I said. I thought about the TARDIS. If I had full power, I could try something truly insane, like creating a massive chamber to hold their whole ship. But I'd never tried to push it that much before and even if I deleted every other room I didn't think it'd work. Especially not now, since the interaction had damaged her pretty badly. "There may be ways to shift the bubble out of the trans-dimensional barrier. We'll have to shift it through the bands of subspace closest to normal real-space, though, and that will be _tricky_." I pointed to Jarod. "You, Royal Smart Person Number 1, your ship's navigational deflector systems... you've got them rigged up in Starfleet fashion, right?"  
  
Jarod considered the question for a moment. "They operate similarly, yeah. Why?"  
  
"Ha!" I clapped my hands. "Perfect! Absolutely perfect. I do so love Starfleet deflectors, almost as versatile as sonic devices, let me tell you! So, here's what we do!" I directed my attention to Robert and Julia. "We fill it chock full of neutrinos and tachyons and all of those other fun particles, create a spacey-wacey field, and..."  
  
"....and form a subspace pocket to shift the time-space around us out of the barrier!", Caterina shouted, jubilantly. "And even if we can't follow, the subspace field gives us a buffer to try our jump drive!"  
  
"Exactly!", I crowed. I do so love coming up with solutions to these things. And given the look on her face, so did Caterina, which I fould to be enormously appropriate. "So all we need to do is get to your deflector control and let me make a couple of modifications, then we should be set!"  
  
"It sounds like you have a plan, Doctor," Robert said. "Why don't..."  
  
I was interrupted by a tone. "That contact from the spatial disturbance is approaching visual range," Jarod said. He was fairly attentive to his instruments. "It's definitely a ship."  
  
"Any idea how they wound up in here?", asked Julia.  
  
"Early sign of instability, maybe," he answered. "A spatial rip drew them in."  
  
"Or they have dimensional travel of some sort as well," Nick Locarno added. "Maybe they got sucked in with us when they used it."  
  
"I'm not picking up any signs of a jump drive," Caterina said.  
  
"More than one way to pierce dimensional barriers, young lady," I said. I looked over to the screen. I had a sick feeling in my stomach; these kinds of situations usually meant nastiness was coming. "Can we get a look at that ship somehow?"  
  
"On screen Jarod," Robert asked.  
  
A distant shape appeared on the bridge viewscreen. "Magnifying," Jarod said even before anyone asked.  
  
The vessel that appeared was stark and utilitarian. Gunmetal gray, bright blue engines on the end, and altogether she looked very nasty. A big, gun-carrying space manta. Something about the design struck my memories. Not the ship itself, but the design aesthetic and coloring.  
  
"Cat?", Julia asked. "What is she?"  
  
"Non-human life signs, but I'm pretty sure the crew's humanoid, and breathing Earth-standard atmosphere." Caterina continued to check her readings, ever the dutiful little science officer. "Ion propulsion drives, and a pretty advanced model. I'm not sure what FTL drive she's got. Definite neutrino signature though. She's... she's IU-capable."  
  
"Power signature?", Robert asked.  
  
"Naqia power source," Caterina confirmed. "At least."  
  
"I'd say she has our scale of power generation," added the redhead at the engineering station beside Cat's. Who was he... oh yes. Thomas Barnes, the foul-mouthed engineer. Hard to believe I overlooked him. Or that he overlooked us. I looked at his station.  
  
Ah, that explained it. He had been working on repairs. Good priorities, at least.  
  
"Definitely not in our database," Jarod confirmed.  
  
"Is it just me," Locarno began, "or is that ship coming in at attack velocity?"  
  
I cringed. And then, as I got a good look at it, I thought I realized who we were dealing with. "Oh, this is going to be bloody annoying," I moaned.  
  
"I think you might be right, Nick," Julia said. "Angel, raise the shields." Ever the practical-minded leader, Julia. I think that's what I liked about her.  
  
I'd been so busy with other things that I hadn't noticed I was no longer held under gunpoint. Angel had finally lowered her pistol away from me. She tapped a couple of keys on her tactical station. "Raising shields."  
  
A tone came from Jarod's station. "They're hailing us. Audio channel."  
  
"Let's hear what they have to say," Robert said. When a confirmation tone came from the Ops station he spoke. "This is Captain Robert Dale of the _Starship Aurora_ , representing the United Alliance of Systems. We appear to be stuck in some sort of..."  
  
There was a crackle on the other end before a rough voice started. " _This is the_ Grelom _, warship of the Kromagg Empire. Human vessel, you are in violation of Kromagg law with your possession of dimansional slider technology. Surrender or you will be destroyed._ "  
  
The _Aurora_ crew looked at one another and then toward me. I sighed. Bloody Kromaggs. I hadn't run into them much. Actually, only once, and it wasn't that big a deal. "Kromaggs," I sighed. "They're... interdimensional conquerors. They usually limit themselves to conquering less-advanced Earths instead of trying for interstellar empires. Fielding a starship of that size and strength is new for them, from what I've seen."  
  
"So it'll be a fight?", Robert asked.  
  
"Given how much they hate Humans?" I nodded. "Oh yes."  
  
"Kromagg ship is locking weapons," Angela said at Tactical.  
  
"Code Red," Robert barked, reaching for his seat harness. "All hands to battle stations."  
  
I looked to the empty seat on his left. Julia nodded to me and made a small hand gesture, so I took the seat and reached for the harness.  
  
As an alert klaxon sounded around us, some of the panel lights turned red. Jarod spoke up next. "I'm picking up new contacts. They're launching fighters."  
  
"Launch our's," Julia said.  
  
"Laurent's people are loading up," Jarod confirmed.  
  
"Um." Caterina looked back. "If we blow them up, or we get blown up... or really if there are too many explosions from main drives... it could make the bubble worse too."  
  
"So I suppose we just sit here and let them shoot us?", Angel asked.  
  
"No," Robert said. "We just avoid blowing them up. Aim for weapons systems."  
  
"Right," Angel growled. "Weapon systems. Of course. So much easier to hit."  
  
"That's why we get paid the big bucks these days," Julia noted with a sly grin. "Doing all the hard things."  
  
"Oh how I love complications," I sighed. Not only was the Multiverse threatened, but the Kromaggs showing up had made things worse.  
  
I'd forgotten at that moment that things could always get worse.  
  
Which, of course, they did, with a howl and a fantastic scream of air as a spatial disturbance formed on the bridge, across from the TARDIS in the front-right corner beyond Locarno. It solidified into a multidimensional tear and out came two forms.  
  
Two very familiar forms. Black, leathery skin, fearsome claws, and wicked teeth. Coal-black eyes stared out at us and their mouths literally began to drip with saliva, like crazed beasts famished and finding a fresh meal to sate their hunger.  
  
I yanked my harness off and reached for my sonics. "Oh bugger!", I shouted in irritation.  
  
Red Court Vampires.  
  
It never gets bloody easier, does it?  
  
  
  
  
A lot of things happened at once.  
  
The vampires were, going by their immediate reactions, the "blood slaves" of the Red Court. Those of that Court who have lost all control of their blood thirst and with it any capacity for rational thought. They only had the impulse to feed.  
  
Unfortunately, this meant they didn't stop to consider how they wound up on a starship at least eight hundred more years advanced than the Earth they'd been taken from. They saw Humans, their source of food, and they went after that food.  
  
I didn't have time to bring my sonic disruptor to bear, so I had to rely on the sonic screwdriver. But I'd already fought these things with just the screwdriver and I knew how the sonics could be used to mess with their senses. The sonic effect I generated sounded to me and everyone else like a pleasing whir, but for the Red vamp I targeted it overwhelmed his bloodlust more than sufficiently to force him to drop.  
  
Of course, this meant I couldn't get the other one, and it went straight for Nick Locarno at the helm.  
  
Julia had her harness off and leapt from her chair to intercept the creature. It was a reasonable decision on her part; protect the man who was piloting their ship just as it was about to get into a fight with another vessel. I yelled a warning at her. "It's too strong!" But I was too late. She was committed to fighting a creature that was far stronger than it looked.  
  
She struck the vampire as it was moving, which is the only reason it didn't simply knock her over. They both tumbled over onto the floor of the bridge. The crazed vampire lashed out and grabbed her shoulder. I heard a crack and a cry of surprise and pain come from Julia as it threw her off with such force she hit the roof of the bridge and fell on top of Robert, who had been getting out of his chair to help.  
  
The ship shuddered underneath us. "Shields at ninety-six percent," Jarod said. He didn't need to point out the Kromagg had opened fire. "Our fighters are engaging."  
  
"I'm returning fire!", Angel declared, her hand moving over the weapon controls of her tactical station.  
  
By that point I was regaining my footing. And trying to put my sonic's disruption effect back upon the Red whom I had been restraining. His partner didn't allow me to, however, and my head spun violently when it delivered a solid blow with its clawed hand that tore my jacket and would have ripped into my chest if not for my armored and warded vest (thank you very much Charity and Molly!). As it was, I was thrown to the wall in front of the engineering and science stations with enough force to knock the wind out of me.  
  
There was a flicker of recognition in the black eyes of the crazed vampire. " _DOC...TOR_ ," he growled, barely sounding like he was speaking a word. " ** _DOCTOR!_** "  
  
He lunged.... just as I brought up the sonic disruptor with setting 42 activated. Purple and blue light flared together against the deflector field being generated by my sonic device.  
  
Of course, the kinetic impact of the blow went right into the disruptor. I thought the impact would rip my arm off.  
  
The other vampire recovered from my stunning just as Robert got out from under Julia. He scrambled to get up. But I knew how fast the Reds were. Even dazed... he didn't have time. And I couldn't get to him.  
  
But Angel could.  
  
The same pulse pistol she'd held on me came up and pointed at the vampire. It fired with the kind of sound you expect from a directed energy weapon. A blue pulse of energy shot out of the emitter and struck the vampire. He staggered, confused, and nearly fell back as the ship shook again from weapons fire coming from the Kromagg ship. Angel tapped her thumb on the back of the pistol three times and fired again. The pulse that came out was bigger, stronger, and when it hit the Red Court Vampire the energy erupted from the impact and seemed to simply start devouring the vampire's body. In a flash of blue light the vampire was disintegrated, or vaporized if you prefer, with just a brief puff of smoke.  
  
The other vampire slammed against my deflector shield again, this time with enough force that I nearly lost my handle on my sonic disruptor. He was oblivious to his comrade's death given his hatred and his bloodlust. " _DOCTOR!_ ," he screeched again, a painful experience in of itself, as he drove his fist against the deflector.  
  
And then blue light devoured him as well.  
  
I went to stand and get to my sonic screwdriver, but I ended up hitting the floor as we shook again. "Shields down to eighty percent!", Jarod reported.  
  
Robert was leaning over Julia. "What's their status?", he asked, looking up briefly.  
  
"Their shields look to be at about ninety percent in effectiveness," Jarod answered. "It looks like they're using a covariant deflector system."  
  
"Covariants, pah," I muttered. "A simple...." I stopped. Given the... precarious nature of the space-time bubble we were trapped in, the solutions I was thinking off had a variety of very nasty potential side effects if employed. "Never mind, actually," I said. I scooped up the sonic screwdriver.  
  
"Nick, evasive maneuvers." Robert looked back down to his fallen first officer. "Julia, are you okay?", he asked.  
  
I got over to her. She remained on the ground. She didn't moan so much as make a little noise. Her eyes opened and were quite dilated given the lighting. I frowned and looked not just to her left shoulder, the linked collarbone broken by the blow of the Red Court vamp, but to the reflection of a substance that had wound up on the visible skin of her neck and lower jaw. I ran a quick check with the sonic screwdriver. "I was afraid of this," I muttered. "The vampire spat on her."  
  
Robert looked at me. "And...?"  
  
The ship rocked again. "Red Court vampires have a powerful narcotic in their saliva. It's both paralyzing and very addictive."  
  
"Vampires?"  
  
"They draw sustenance from Human blood. So, yes, vampires," I answered flippantly. "Like big vampire bats. With narcotic saliva and superhuman strength."  
  
"Right." Robert pressed a key on his chair as he got back into it. "Bridge to medbay. Leo, I need a medical team."  
  
" _I'll send one right up_ ," was the reply. I recognized the name. Leo Gillam was the ship's chief medical officer.  
  
"Wait," I said. "I still need to get to deflector control. I'll take her with me and drop her off at the medbay."  
  
"That's quite a distance," Robert pointed out.  
  
I nodded. "I'm also stronger than I look." After saying that I put my arms under Julia's unmoving form. She was barely conscious and in quite the drug stupor.  
  
As I went toward the nearest lift, to the rear port side, Caterina stood from sensors. "He's going to need help in deflector control, and I know what he's trying to do. I should go."  
  
Robert looked back at her as I activated the door. I looked back to see he was ready to say no, but he started to consider it and finally nodded. "Alright." He nodded to one of the handful of junior officers managing the auxiliary stations, a young lady with distinct Middle Eastern coloration and features.  
  
Caterina joined me in the lift. "Deck 12, Medbay," she said, and the lift started moving us through the ship.  
  
  
  
  
Given the TARDIS was still on the bridge, I was quite capable of learning what happened after I left. With the momentary distraction done, Robert got back into his command chair and secured himself. The _Aurora_ took more fire from the Kromaggs. "Shields now at seventy-five percent."  
  
"Jarod, that Doctor looked like he had an idea on how to disrupt their shields," Robert said.  
  
"There are a few ways," Jarod answered. "But the space-time bubble could destabilize if we create those kinds of fields."  
  
"Any luck on knocking out their weapons?", Robert asked Angel.  
  
"Still trying!", was the heated response. "They keep re-directing their shields toward us, I can't get a hit on their weak side.  
  
I could imagine it. The _Aurora_ , nimble for her size, trying to evade the fire of the Kromagg vessel and being restrained in her own return fire. The Kromaggs didn't seem to realize she was holding back and they kept up their attack, determined to subdue a ship they undoubtedly considered a threat to their empire.  
  
They probably didn't realize that the _Aurora_ crew had other options.  
  
Robert pressed his intercom key. " _Aurora_ to _Koenig_. Zack, are you ready to launch?"  
  
The voice of Commander Zachary Carrey came over the speaker. " _We're ready when you are._ "  
  
"Jarod, begin combat launch sequence for the _Koenig_ ," Robert ordered.  
  
"Opening launch bay doors now. Preparing to release docking clamps."  
  
The _Aurora_ was not entirely like a normal Starfleet design. She had no neck to differentiate between her primary and drive hulls. From the outside, the marking of where one ended and the other began was aided by two things. One was where the lowest decks of the drive hull flowed downward from the ship's main hull, the front of this shape forming the ship's navigational deflector dish. The other was where the primary hull's back flowed down by about fifty meters to the top of the drive hull, somewhere around the 380 meter mark from the bow of the ship. The beam of the primary hull tapered inward and formed the main shuttle bays for the ship (not to be confused with its fighter complement's recovery and hanger deck and the launch tubes they used).... and the big dock for the _Aurora_ to carry a supporting starship.  
  
That ship was the _ASV Koenig_.  
  
"Docking clamps released, umbilicals released and secured," Jarod continued.  
  
" _We're clear. Launching now. All hands, Code Red!_ "  
  
From the opened dock the _Koenig_ emerged. She was a squat design, four decks, a crew of about fifty, and armored warp nacelles attached to the main hull looking like slightly forward-swept wings. If that design sounds familiar.... there's a reason for it, from the same engineer who had given the _Aurora_ 's other aesthetics their modified Starfleet feel. But that's a story for another time.  
  
The important part was that the _Koenig_ , once released from her mothership, came about and flew toward the Kromagg ship. Her forward weapons opened up, a quartet of pulse phaser cannon emitters that thundered amber fury onto the deflectors of the Kromagg vessel, adding to their workload.  
  
"The Kromagg ship is firing some of their secondary firepower at the _Koenig_ ," Jarod said. And I can imagine that bemused grin of his as he answered, "Their shields are holding at ninety-seven percent."  
  
"They won't underestimate the _Koenig_ 's defenses for long. Let's give Zack and his people a big opening," Robert said. "Bring us about. Angel, give them the forward pulse cannons, full barrage."  
  
"About time," she said. "Torpedo lock?"  
  
"Let's hold back on that for the moment," he answered. "Cat made it pretty clear that either of us going boom is going to make things worse."  
  
"Right," Angel sighed. "No torpedoes." The ship rocked heavily again from the impact of the Kromagg ship's missile armament. "Maybe you should tell _them_ that too."  
  
"I don't think they would listen to us," Locarno pointed out. "I'm bringing you around.... now."  
  
_Aurora_ pointed her bow toward the Kromagg vessel. Six pulse cannon emitters built into her bow opened up. While the ship had smaller emitters to fire the same cannons as on the _Koenig_ into their other arcs, these weapons were based directly on the technology of the Darglan, the extinct race that had designed the interuniversal drives the _Aurora_ 's crew used on their ships, and were based on the plasma-based weaponry the Darglan had once used. Instead of the amber coloring of phaser fire, the pulse cannons erupted with sapphire fury, thick pulses of blue energy that crossed the artificial space-time and slammed into the Kromagg ship's deflectors. "Direct hit," Angel said. I could imagine her allowing herself quite the grin. "We definitely put a dent in their shields."  
  
"And they're adjusting their shields forward to match," Jarod said.  
  
Robert hit his intercom button again. "Zack, make sure you hold off on those torpedoes. Cat says nasty things will happen if either of our ships gets blown up."  
  
" _Would be nice if they realized that_ ," was Zack's reply. " _Sherlily has heard and acknowledged. Phasers only._ "  
  
_Koenig_ darted close, evading a flight of Kromagg fighters and peppering the Kromagg ship repeatedly with their main battery. the Kromagg shields flashed red from the impacts, but not the same bright red that was resisting _Aurora_ 's firepower.  
  
"Looks like they don't like these odds," Jarod said. "It looks like they're starting to pull back."  
  
Robert nodded. "Keep an eye on them. If they fully disengage, we'll do the same. And keep trying to hail them."  
  
"Right. I..." There was a tone from Jarod's console. His expression turned severe. "Internal sensors are going haywire."  
  
Robert leaned forward in his seat. "What is it?"  
  
"I'm picking up _multiple_ spatial disturbances appearing in the ship."  
  
Robert's hand went to his intercom. "All hands, intruder alert, multiple decks! Prepare to repel boarders!"  
  
A moment later the ship was rocked violently. "Internal explosion, Deck 28," Barnes shouted. "Looks like one of the rifts took out one of our main plasma conduits! Main power is down by one quarter!"  
  
"Kromagg ship is coming about again," Jarod added.  
  
"Angel, do what you can with the weapons," Robert said. "Nick..."  
  
"Beginning evasive maneuvers, sir," Locarno said, already twisting the ship to avoid another shot from the Kromagg ship's main particle cannons.  
  
  
  
  
My trip to the medbay had been quick, with Caterina leading the way, with the occasional shake reminding us of the battle with the Kromaggs. We walked in and found some of the crew being treated for minor injuries. A young woman, Darfurian Sudanese I thought, directed me to bring Julia to one of the biobeds. "She was subjected to a dose of a major narcotic compound," I told the nurse. The name 'Nasri' came to mind. "And her left collarbone is broken."  
  
Nasri looked up at a subordinate medtech. "Prepare Narban, 20ccs, and I need a skeletal regenerator."  
  
There was movement from across the room. I turned and watched a young-looking man enter. From the way he looked I thought he would have fit right in with the Sisko family. The blue on his uniform was lighter than that on Caterina's uniform. "Ah," I said. "Doctor Leonard Gillam, I presume?" I offered my hand.  
  
Leo eyed me with curiosity. "You are?", he asked.  
  
"Oh, I'm the Doctor," I answered, smiling.  
  
"Medical?"  
  
"Oh... a bit of everything, really." I tapped my forehead. "Time Lord brain, it really helps with multidisciplinary practices."  
  
"I see." Leo moved on to check Julia. Nasri was looking at the readings before looking back to the medical tool in her hand. "Narcotic exposure. The 20ccs of Narban haven't done anything about it."  
  
Leo frowned and held up his medical scanner. It was attachable to the multidevice on his right forearm but was nevertheless an independent, handheld unit. "I've never seen a narcotic like that. We may have to use Purin, 10ccs."  
  
"Before you pump Commander Andreys full of all sorts of biochemical cocktails in an attempt to clear her body of the narcotic, it might be best if you synthesized a compound I happen to know of..." I laid out a compound that I had generally used to treat Red Court victims on the few occasions we had tangled. Leo nodded to Nasri, who stepped up to the nearby medical replicator and put in the chemicals and dosages I listed. The device happily created a hypospray that Nasri applied to Julia.  
  
"We should get going," Caterina said. "Deflector Control is down on Deck 32."  
  
"Well, with your lifts it shouldn't take us too long to..."  
  
The ship began to shudder under us. It wasn't the usual feedback of the shields getting hit; we'd been enduring that so long it wasn't very noteworthy. I grabbed the end of an empty bed to hold myself up while the lights flickered very briefly.  
  
Cat fell back against the same bed and looked down at her scanner. "Oh, that's bad," she said.  
  
"What?" I reached for my sonic screwdriver.  
  
"I'm picking up more spatial instability forming. And we just lost one of our main power conduits."  
  
I took a moment and confirmed her. In fact, with the sonic I could tell such rifts were forming all across the ship. "One must have gotten a power conduit or some other thing. And I think we have one forming..."  
  
The door to the ship corridor slid open and a man entered. He had Asian features and one of the paler complexions, a bit on the short side. And his suit looked like dark robes with red trim, including the hood over his....  
  
Oh bloody hell.  
  
He was a member of the _Red Lotus_.  
  
His amber eyes were already widened in panic and shock, but when he saw me I watched them switch to fear and anger. "You!", he shouted. "You did this! You're still after us!" He assumed a fighting stance.  
  
The plume of flame that erupted from his hand with his next movement would have burnt not just me, but Cat and Leo as well. Thankfully I had the sonic disruptor up and tuned to setting 42, which I admit had long become my most used setting ever. The flames struck the field and parted around it, scorching the carpet, the ceiling, and the equipment around us.  
  
"Why aren't your fire suppression systems activating?!", I shouted.  
  
"Damage from the spatial instabilities and power loss," Cat suggested. "But how is he..?!"  
  
"He's a Firebender from a world I have fairly frequent contact with," I answered. I almost asked if they had sidearms but realized the obvious answer of now. Cat and Leo weren't the pistol-carrying types.  
  
"Once you're gone, the Red Lotus will triumph!", the Firebender shouted. "The Avatar will fall and..."  
  
There was movement from his side and behind him. A pair of arms whipped around his throat in a brutal chokehold. Julia Andreys, standing half a foot over the Firebender at six feet and about half an inch, easily assumed the necessary leverage. Pain flickered across her determined face, courtesy of that broken collarbone, which the Firebender's head was pressed against. I could see her trying to shift him to the other direction, but the important part was holding on.  
  
The Red Lotus man's flame died away, but I didn't dare lower my sonic. Flames shot out from his nostrils and fists as he tried to get to Julia, who hung on and kept him from pulling her off her feet. He nearly got her with one gout of flame from his flailing left hand. It singed her fine blonde hair near the temple and left pinkish skin from where it had burnt her.  
  
But still she held on.  
  
The Red Lotus Firebender's shouts became harsh breathing, and that died away as, over the course of seconds, Julia's choke hold successfully cut his lungs off from the oxygen they needed. He grew limp against her as she pulled him back toward the wall.  
  
She held on just a moment longer before slowly releasing him. Leo ran up. "He's unconscious," he confirmed with his medical scanner.  
  
"Keep him sedated," I said. "Trust me on that."  
  
Julia smiled weakly. "Was I just high as a kite?", she inquired.  
  
"As high as a starship in orbit, actually," I replied. "Red Court saliva is extraordinarily powerful as a narcotic."  
  
"Ah. That explains why everything feels so... weird." Her eyes began to roll up into her head as she lost conscious. The compound I'd helped Nasri and Leo synthesize had managed to neutralize the narcotic itself, but it hadn't yet lost its grip on her system. That entire thing had been one spurt of effort with the willpowr she had left.  
  
It had still been quite welcome.  
  
"We'd better get going," I said to Leo. "This is only going to get worse."  
  
"I'll call security to get us a team," Leo said. "Don't worry about us."  
  
I nodded, as did Cat, and we went back into the corridors. "The lifts will be unreliable with main power damaged," she said to me. "We'll have to take the ladders and the tubes."  
  
I sighed. "Always with the complications," I said.  
  
And then the ship shook once more.  
  
  
  
  
"Shields down to forty-two percent," Jarod reported. "We're starting to see bleedthrough."  
  
"Can we bring the backup generators online?", Robert asked.  
  
"Not with this power loss," Barnes answered. "The spatial tears forming inside of the ship are playing havoc with our systems."  
  
There was another violent shaking. The lights flickered again. "Tom?!", Robert shouted.  
  
"Something.... something's loose in the drive section," he answered. "It just knocked out a power conduit junction. Three sections on Decks 22 through 26 just lost power."  
  
"Including some of our weapons," Angel pointed out. "I've lost several of our port side phaser strips and pulse emitters."  
  
"Can we get a transporter lock?"  
  
"Transporters aren't reliable," Jarod answered. "Not with all the spatial distortions."  
  
"Terrific," Robert muttered. "There are times I wonder if they're worth the trouble..." The ship shook again. "Shields?"  
  
"Thirty-seven percent. Minor damage to the bow, Decks 7 and 8," Jarod answered.  
  
On the screen Robert watched the Kromagg ship prepare to fire again. Several of its mounts were trying to engage _Koenig_ , which continued to dart around on the ship's other arcs and damage its armored hull. "Jarod, get Commander Kane's security teams to find that thing and deal with it," Robert said. "And where is Cat and that Doctor?"  
  
"Deck 20, in the manual access shaft," Jarod answered. He noticed something on his screens. "More spatial disturbances."  
  
Robert couldn't help but pale a little. "Which decks?"  
  
"Not us," Jarod answered. "The Kromagg ship."  
  
Another explosion flowered out of the sinister manta-shaped starship. Some of its running lights flickered. "Well, at least we're both having problems," Robert muttered. He reached for the intercom. "Bridge to Lieutenant Delgado. Caterina, please tell me you're making good time."  
  
  
  
  
I heard Caterina breath hard as she lowered herself to another deck. She reached over and pressed the comm key on her multidevice. "We're getting there! But I'm not trusting the turbolift."  
  
" _We understand. But this is getting bad, Cat. We need that solution,_ now _._ "  
  
"Right. Delgado out." Cat sighed and continued climbing down. I followed dutifully, stopping when she caught her uniform skirt on one rung. She wobbled a moment, muttering something under her breath, and resumed climbing down. "We're almost to Deck 22," she said. "Then we'll cut across and take another access shaft down another ten decks."  
  
"Oh rapturous joy," I muttered.  
  
We exited into a corridor and began jogging down it. I was keeping good pace but I thought Caterina was having some problems with it. "Not used to this, eh?"  
  
"Not... really," she admitted.  
  
"Well, you probably should...."  
  
Caterina's comm beeped again. It was Robert. "Yes?"  
  
" _Is the Doctor there? One of the spatial instabilities appeared on_ Koenig _and Zack's having problems with it_."  
  
My stomach twisted. "Oi. What horrible monster is tearing his ship up?"  
  
There was a pause. Evidently Robert was speaking with Zachary on another comm line. " _Well... it's not attacking, it's just... distracting. A lot, Zack says. The thing just keeps prancing around talking about... really? Parties?_ "  
  
A vague suspicion crossed my mind. I put a hand on my forehead. "This wouldn't happen to be a... quadruped, would she?"  
  
" _A talking pony, yes_."  
  
"....is she _pink_? Wait, stupid question, I already know the answer. Can you patch us through to _Koenig_? Open audio."  
  
" _Patching you through now._ "  
  
I gritted my teeth and forced a friendly tone over my exasperation. "Let me guess. Pinkie Pie, is that you?"  
  
Not a second passed before a very excited female voice came over the commlink. " _Oh, Doctor! You're here too?! What is this place, there are so many of these two-legged people around and it's really dreary-looking and all of these red lights are...!_ "  
  
I forced more joy into my voice. "Uh... Pinkie... I know you terribly enjoy being friendly, but could you... sort of... remain quiet for the time being. We're trying to stop a knot of space-time in the interuniversal barrier from destroying part of Reality."  
  
" _Really? Are you sure I can't help?! Because that sounds really bad and..._ "  
  
"This is a.... Doctor-y thing, Pinkie. It's very spacey-wacey and timey-wimey, I'm afraid it's not something you can really help with. I suppose that you could go make tea for everyone to have a party _after_ we save Reality from going splort."  
  
" _Oh! That's a really good idea!_ "  
  
"Right. Go on ahead. And I'll make sure to see if I can get you some of that Qi'tri'naya tea you so enjoyed on my last visit."  
  
" _You promise?!_ "  
  
I nodded, though she couldn't see me. "I do promise."  
  
" _Alright! I'm off to set up the party!_ "  
  
There was silence on the line for a moment. And then I heard another voice, presumably Zack's, say, " _Well, I knew we'd see strange stuff out here, but I never imagined..._ "  
  
"Thankfully, Commander Carrey, there are plenty of strange things that are perfectly benign," I said. "It's not always monsters and grib-.."  
  
There was a sudden crash down the hall. One of the doors was forced open from the inside, bent out against its frame and allowing a big, hulking, nasty thing to force its way out into the corridor. It - no, he - turned toward us with hazed, angry eyes. There were only a handful of teeth left in his mouth, but they sparkled. They _were_ diamonds, after all.  
  
"Doctor..." Caterina's voice became almost a squeak. "...what is that?"  
  
"Troll," I answered. "A Discworld troll. I believe his name is Cobbly."  
  
Cobbly. The enforcer for a gang of unlicensed thieves that had vexed me on my very first visit to Ankh-Morpork on the Discworld. He showed no signs of more than basic stupefaction at his change of location. That wasn't surprising, though; I got the feeling that Cobbly's brain had been reduced to the consistency of porridge by all of the Slab and Slice and Slam and those other Troll drugs that his human partners kept giving him.  
  
He growled in inarticulate, drug-induced aggression and hefted his club, which smacked against the ceiling of the corridor.  
  
So I did the only thing I could do.  
  
I grabbed Caterina's wrist and pulled her along with me, screaming, "Run!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the Aurora and Koenig fight off the Kromagg, our narrator faces old adversaries in the heart of the ship.

Being chased through a starship by a rampaging, drugged-up Troll was not on my list of things I wanted to do today. For that matter, neither was racing to prevent a bubble of unnatural space-time stuck in the interuniversal barrier from undoing large sections of what we like to call Reality. And doing so in the company of the crew of the _Starship Aurora_ , whom I was uncertain about would later realize were creations of my own mind, that just added to the weirdness scale.  
  
I would have rather been bored out of my mind at the poolside under Liara's enforced vacation.  
  
Probably.  
  
Maybe?  
  
.....alright, maybe not, that was pretty boring.  
  
But either way, I was now being chased through the corridors of the Aurora by Cobbly, a drug-addled and drug-addicted Troll I had once run into back in my first visit to Ankh-Morpork. Nor was I alone, as I was pulling along a frightened and bewildered Caterina Delgado. Lieutenant Delgado, that is. _Aurora_ 's science officer and the most enthusiastic scientist girl I'd ever know. With the sole exception of Abby Sciuto, maybe.  
  
She had also been the template in my head that my TARDIS had used in generating her holographic appearance whenever she interacted with me directly. And since the two shared at least that aspect of their personalities, I suppose I felt like I was indeed running along with my TARDIS herself.  
  
Cobbly let out a yell and forced his way through the narrow - to him anyway - corridors of the Auora, smacking up against the bulkheads repeatedly as he did so. If he caught us, well... even if I had any regenerations left, I'm not sure I'd survive anyway. Trolls can be nasty with their clubs.  
  
And they can be deceptively fast too. As it was, we were staying a step ahead because Cobbly had so much trouble with the corridors' width.  
  
"Wait!", Caterina shouted as we reached an intersection. "The biological sciences lab, it's this way!" She pulled me toward the indicated direction. Or rather tried. One of the drawbacks to being a cute little geeky girl - well, twenty-one year old - was that you didn't have a lot of muscle mass.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Trust me!"  
  
We ran down toward the indicated door. Caterina ran over to a control panel. "Lure him over to that square!", she said, indicating an area off to one side, not quite against the wall. After she said that she started working furiously. "I need to divert some power."  
  
Before I could inquire or protest Cobbly pressed his way through the door, bending it out of place. He brought his club up and I had to jump back to avoid getting smashed. I rolled to my feet and brought the sonic disruptor up. I tried the neural disruption setting and got... precisely no effect. Again, I doubted he had much of a brain left given all of the drugs. I hastily switched to my deflector shield setting just in time to catch his club. I thought my shoulder was going to come off from the impact.  
  
Which explains why the second impact ripped the disruptor from my hand and sent it skittering across the floor.  
  
Cobbly roared again. After he did so, Cat shouted, "I'm ready!"  
  
With no superior alternative, I fell back toward the aforementioned square. Cobbly kept swinging, repeatedly slamming his club to the deck and registering a loud crash with each blow. And I kept backpedaling until I hit the wall.  
  
Cobbly roared and charged ahead, looking to crush me against the wall.  
  
He crossed into the square on the way. Blue light appeared at the base of it after his feet had both crossed into it. Blue energy crackled into appearance and stopped Cobbly's charge cold. He fell onto his arse with a confused grunt. He started gazing around and reached out to another side of the square. More energy resisted him.  
  
"I'm shoring up the forcefield to a full quarantine-level field," Caterina said. "That should hold him."  
  
I smiled as I stepped around the square. "That was..." I walked up to her and took her shoulders. "Caterina, oh, that was quite brilliant. Quite brilliant indeed."  
  
Her cheeks turned into an adorable pinkish red. "Th-thank you," she said shyly.  
  
""Well, now that we have that settled..."  
  
There was another violent shaking of the ship, above that normal minor shake from weapons not getting past the shields. "Spatial instability spiking again!", Caterina said. "Hold on!"  
  
We tried, grabbing onto consoles to keep ourselves standing. We succeeded.  
  
Toward the end of the shaking, the power in the lab nearly went out. The lights flickered repeatedly before staying on.  
  
The forcefield also flickered. And it did not stay on.  
  
Cobbly turned toward us as the field failed. He growled in anger and hefted his club again.  
  
"Here we go ag-."  
  
Before I could finish, another voice called out, shouting "Down!" Cat and I dropped to the floor and I looked up to see a man in combat armor standing in the wrenched-open doorway. He held a rather large particle weapon in his arms.  
  
By the time we hit the ground he had gotten his aim on the troll and fired. A thick beam of blue energy erupted from the machine and speared the Troll head on. Cobbly screamed and fell onto his arse. There was a giant smoking mark on his chest, still red hot from the particle blast. He made a noise before falling backward, unconscious, the impact on the deck making the entire deck seem to vibrate.  
  
"You almost killed him," I noted, feeling a bit irritated.  
  
"I thought I would," the man said. "This is an anti-vehicle weapon." He nodded to me and extended a hand to help me up. I looked him over. The uniform was mostly olive brown with black trim and the same rank insignia as a senior lieutenant on his collar. The man's eyes were a light blue and his hair a lighter shade of the same color, almost wheat-like in its coloration. "Commander Carter Kane, Marine Corps," he introduced himself as.  
  
"Commander Kane." I accepted the hand, allowing the name to circulate in my head a little. There was something... familiar about it. Looking at his rank insignia I saw he was most likely a Captain, but it was understandable to amend the rank used.  
  
"We need to get to deflector control," Caterina told him.  
  
Kane nodded and shifted the weight of his weapon. "Secondary shaft, then. The primary shaft has some kind of... goo creature."  
  
"A Ti'ma'tani," I moaned. "Nasty things. Like to kill you slowly and eat you when you get all runny. Keep it contained with fire, once we're done with the space-time bubble I'll see what I can do."  
  
Kane nodded. "This way."  
  
We moved along the beam of the ship now, heading toward the aforementioned secondary hatch. As we approached it, coming up on the main corridor leading to the hatch, Kane began to speak. "I've got a security team waiting for us there," he said, "and one of my platoons is waiting for you on Deck 32."  
  
"That's good," Caterina said. "Because who knows what nasty..."  
  
"Oi, please, don't jinx it!", I protested.  
  
"Jinx what?"  
  
"Our journey," I answered. "You're just begging for something to happen."  
  
"Don't worry, Doctor," Kane said. "Our people can handle anything that..."  
  
There was a scream in the distance. And a single armed figure flew wildly across the corridor, moving along the top of the T our corridor was the stem for.  
  
"See?", I lamented. "This things happen all the..."  
  
I felt the energy ahead due to my Time Lord senses. It was... cold. Angry and nasty. I swallowed. I knew this.  
  
A figure came around the corner, lightning crackling around his fingertips. Angry red eyes shined like coals at us. He wore armor, marked with a respirator system on the chest, hooked to the plate over his mouth and lower jaw.  
  
"Doctor," he said, his voice not too deep but scratchy from the growl within it. "I have been looking forward to this."  
  
Bloody hell.  
  
It was _Darth Malgus_.  
  
  
  
  
The battle between _Aurora_ and the Kromagg had entered an uncertain phase. Both ships had disengaged and were focusing on repairs and dealing with the unexpected problems of the spatial instabilities dropping annoyances into their ships.  
  
Robert had his finger on the intercom button. "Bridge to Engineering. Mister Scott, any estimation on that conduit repair."  
  
" _She's well and truly blown out, Captain_ ," was the reply in the obvious Scottish accent of the ship's chief engineer and co-builder, Montgomery Scott. Yes, that Montgomery Scott. Nicholas Locarno had company when he joined with Robert and the others. " _It'll take my crews hours tae put th' conduits back together._ "  
  
"How many hours, Mister Scott?", Robert asked, exasperated. "Or is there a way to divert main power? We're going to need it before this is over.""  
  
" _I've got a few ideas, sir. I'll let ye know when they're in place._ "  
  
"Excellent news. Bridge out." As the channel cut the ship shook again.  
  
"Shields are down to twenty percent," Jarod warned. "We'll lose shield cohesion soon."  
  
"Status on the Kromagg ship?" Robert watched on the viewscreen as another barrage of phaser fire from the ship's starboard-mounted weapons sapped at the red energy of the Kromaggs' deflector shields.  
  
"Hard to say with how their covariant shield is set up," Jarod answered. "But I'd say they're still at about thirty-three percent effectiveness. _Koenig_ is at sixty percent."  
  
"Fighter status."  
  
"They're down to twenty. Commander Laurent says he's lost about twenty so far."  
  
"We're winning in that department at least," Robert sighed.  
  
The ship rocked again. "Shields down to fifteen percent. Damage in several sections, Decks 6 through 24 and 27 through 34."  
  
"You've got to let me go weapons free," Angel urged. "It's not going to do us any good if they blow us up."  
  
Robert bit into his lip. "Jarod, that covariant shield. You and the Doctor seemed to think it has weaknesses."  
  
"It does," Jarod answered. "But the sort of energy fields we would have to utilize to destabilize their shields will only make the space-time bubble more unstable."  
  
"Think of something then. Because at this rate," Robert said, "we're going to be blown up even if we do go weapons free."  
  
  
  
  
I pulled the sonic screwdriver out of my pocket, ready to deal with Malgus as I'd done at our first encounter.  
  
But before i could activate it, his hand swept up. A powerful force ripped my tool from my hand. "You will not get to use that again," Malgus swore. He motioned with the other hand and pulled away my sonic disruptor. "This time, you will die. And the Sith Empire will know vengeance."  
  
"Fire in the hole!", Kane shouted, triggering his particle cannon. Blue energy erupted from it once more.  
  
Malgus dived under it swiftly and came back up, lightning crackling in his hand. It shot out and seized Commander Kane. He let out a pained cry and flew backward.  
  
"Run!", I shouted to Cat. "Get to deflector control, I'll follow when I can!"  
  
She turned to flee.... and stopped. A gurgle came from her throat and I watched in horror as she lifted into the air and twisted around. Her legs kicked wildly in mid-air and her hands went to her throat, trying to stop the invisible force crushing her throat. "You... care for this one, don't you?", Malgus said, his voice turned coldly mechanical by the respirator mask over his mouth. "Then I shall have you watch as I draw the life out of her. Only then will I permit you to die..."  
  
I moved toward my nearest sonic device by way of answer. As I scrambled across the floor I felt it. The vise on my throat as Malgus' dark power reached for it. He held up both arms as his power gripped Caterina and I. I started to lift from the ground as well. While my own breath struggled to come through the grip of Malgus' power, I looked over to where Caterina was starting to turn blue, choking to death in Malgus' grip.  
  
I couldn't let that happen. I had to save her. _I had to save her._  
  
I just wasn't sure how I'd do so in my current situation.  
  
Thankfully, I didn't have to.  
  
Malgus seemed to let up for a moment, showing some surprise. He let us go entirely a moment later when energy surged by us and slammed into him, sending him flying backward several feet. He rolled backward and got to his feet. We fell to the floor and landed on our knees. I sucked air into my lungs greedily and felt at my sore throat.  
  
A woman stepped up to us. She wasn't tall or short, maybe around five foot ten. Her light brown hair was cut to just above the shoulder and her blue eyes looked down at us with concern and benevolence, showing a face that was slightly rounded but not wide. She wasn't in a uniform like the others, but rather dark purple body armor of some sort with a blue robe over it that matched the color of her eyes. The rank insignia of a Lieutenant Commander was affixed to the collar of her armor. Her eyes flicked back up to Malgus. "You have given yourself to darkness," she said simply. "And I will not let you harm them."  
  
Caterina coughed. "Meri...dina?"  
  
Of course. The ship's security chief, a Gersallian. Another race of aliens that look human. I could become snarky about that, but we Gallifreyans are the same, so I can't really throw stones, can I?  
  
I sensed energy around Meridina, calm and serene. The same energy that Malgus had undoubtedly sensed. It was familiar to him, even if I thought it was slightly different. " _Jedi_ ", he spat.  
  
Meridina shook her head once. "I do not know what you mean by that. I am Meridina, _Swevyra'se_ of Gersal. I will not allow you to bring harm to anyone else with your darkness."  
  
"Probably easier to understand if you just say 'Life Force Knight'", I pointed out. "Hard for a lot of beings to get the right sound out of that, I mean."  
  
Meridina quietly ignored me, taking a step toward Malgus, the tension I felt in her steps nothing more than the natual tension of a body preparing itself for a harsh battle.  
  
Malgus pulled his lightsaber loose from his belt. It came to life with a snap-hiss of sound and a blood-red beam. Cat stared at the humming weapon, so sinister in Malgus' hand.  
  
Meridina's hand went to an object on her waist, a hilt. She held it out and I heard the soft click of her thumb hitting a switch. For a moment, gray matter seemed to flow in a straight, controlled line out of the hilt, as if through an invisible field of force to keep it contained. There was a metallic sound and the matter became solid, forming a two-sided blade that looked like it was good for stabbing and slashing alike. Ah. Memory metal. Quite useful, if you ask me.  
  
I could see it was not just a sword, though. Not from the way it was giving off EM readings. Although mostly invisible to the naked eye, I could feel the subtle energy its EM field was giving off. With that field the sword could reflect many energy weapon types. Including, I realized, the containment field for the lightsaber in Malgus' hand.  
  
"Do what you must," Meridina said to us. "Leave and do what you are needed to. I will hold this creature of darkness from pursuing you."  
  
"He's extraordinarily powerful," I warned her. Even as I did so, I could see it in her eyes. She _knew_ Malgus' power was stronger than anything she had ever faced. She knew she was in the fight of her life.  
  
But there was no fear in her eyes. Only resolve. I could sense the emotion in her, the feelings of a duty to be met, of darkness to be confronted, that was so central to her being that she could not back down in the face of Malgus.  
  
Before I could say anything else, Malgus leapt at us. Meridina shot forward, her sword - what was it called again? A _likes_ , _lukesh_.... _lakesh_ , yes! - up in a parry position that caught Malgus' lightsaber and deflected it away. He wordlessly brought the blade around and attacked again, just to be parried once more. The memory metal blade was light enough that she was able to intercept Malgus' aggressive attacks with his lightsaber. I wasn't sure how well it'd stand up to the lightsaber over time, but I didn't dare try to disrupt the technology with the sonic screwdriver. Not only did I run the risk of possibly disabling the electromagnetic field over the _lakesh_ , I also had the strong suspicion that Meridina might not fare as well in a raw conflict of metaphysical strength.  
  
That just left the other, more pressing point. Namely, the entire part of the space-time bubble that was threatening to tear holes across multiple universes from within the interuniversal barrier.  
  
It was a similar calculation that forced me to leave behind Kane as well, unconscious as he was. I took Caterina by the arm and led her away from the constant humming and swishing of the duel between Meridina and Malgus. "We'll have to find an alternative path to that access hatch," I told Cat, since the battle of Force-users - if one wanted to consider Meridina to be a Jedi-by-another-name, anyway - was between us and the hatch.  
  
She nodded. "We'll cross over to Section P and take another hall up, past the engineering labs."  
  
"Sounds good to me," I breathed.  
  
And so we ran on, even as the shaking of the ship around us grew more violent.  
  
The shields were failing.  
  
  
  
  
Around that time was when Jarod made the announcement on the bridge that they had all been dreading. "Shields down to ten percent. We're getting almost sixty-six percent bleedthrough hitting the hull."  
  
"I'm trying everything I can to reinforce them," Barnes added, before Robert could ask. "But that's the best I can do!"  
  
"Jarod, Tom, I need _options_ ," Robert growled.  
  
It was probably a good thing they had Jarod along. Definitely the next best thing to a Soong android, or a Time Lord for that matter. Within seconds, I imagine, his brain was already running through the final calculations. "Tom, get ready to focus all shields to the dorsal side."  
  
"Sure. Why?"  
  
"Because I'm going to modify them to give off a countervariance to the Kromagg shields," Jarod announced.  
  
"Meaning?", Robert asked.  
  
"You're turning our shields into a cutter field," Locarno said from the helm, glancing over at his shipmate. "With the right countervariance frequency... you'll overload their entire shield grid. You realize I'm going to have to nearly scrape the hulls together for that to work, right?"  
  
"That's why I thought it possible," Jarod answered, returning the glance. I could imagine the bemused smirk on the older man's face. "I'm not sure any other helmsman for this ship could pull it off."  
  
"And if it doesn't fully overload their shield grid?", Locarno asked.  
  
"At the very least it'll give _Koenig_ and our fighters an open shot at their hull," Jarod said. "I've been compiling scans of the Kromagg ship, I think I can give us a clean shot to cripple them without making their entire ship go up."  
  
"How much of a chance either way?", Robert asked.  
  
"I... can't say," he answered after a moment of consideration. "I'd say no more than one out of ten that we'll blow them up completely anyway."  
  
"Right." Robert drew in a breath. I can easily imagine the conflict in his expression, given the stakes at hand. The warring need to consider the needs of his crew and protecting untold numbers of beings from having their homes ripped apart in dimensional bedlam. "Feed the tactical data to _Koenig_ and our fighters. Angel, you take other targets with whatever we have."  
  
"Locking on now," Angel said.  
  
" _We're taking up formation with you,_ " Zack said over the ship-to-ship comm.  
  
"Alright, Nick." Robert nodded at him. "Time to show us more of that fancy Starfleet flying."  
  
"Fancy Starfleet flying, coming right up," Locarno said, smiling slightly as he did so. His hands went to the engine controls.  
  
 _Aurora_ twisted about and fired her impulsors, moving straight toward the Kromagg ship. Under Locarno's control she accelerated while the ship started shuddering about them. Sparks erupted from one of the auxiliary consoles in the back, but it was unmanned so no one was hurt. "I'm transferring shield power now," Barnes said. "Otherwise we won't have the power to make this work."  
  
"Steady...." Robert said.  
  
Behind them, the _Koenig_ and the remaining flights of Mongoose fighters moved into formation, ready to pour their firepower into the Kromagg ship when it was vulnerable.  
  
I don't think I can easily do justice to the sheer difficulty of Nicholas Locarno's job at this point. The _Aurora_ , given her size, was not a ship so nimble as to stop or maneuver easily. He had to run her within a handful of meters, really feet, of the Kromagg hull, as the Kromagg ship was moving, and keep his maneuvers just right to avoid a collision or being too far away. The Kromagg ship veered away, trying to avoid what they presumed was a suicide run. Locarno used that against them, maneuvering to force them to twist and bank away, and allowing him to re-orientate the ship to draw its dorsal side within feet of the belly of the Kromagg vessel. "Range is two kilometers," he said, the Kromagg ship looming larger on the screen. "One point five. One. Seven fifty meters. Five hundred!"  
  
"Diverting all power to the shields, shifting them to the countervariance frequency!", Jarod added.  
  
"Two hundred!..."  
  
Locarno didn't bother stating when they were moving right alongside the Kromagg ship. A last minute thruster firing kept the _Aurora_ 's port side from slamming into the Kromagg ship's belly. Red and blue energy met and sparked around the closest points between the ships. The red light gave way to the blue, like butter being sliced by a hot knife. At Angel's direction, phaser strips vented amber fury into the undefended belly of the Kromagg ship, cutting like scalpels against the points Jarod had lined out. _Koenig_ followed in their way, her phasers blazing, and missiles from the Mongoose fighters struck out and went into the wound in the Kromaggs' shields, taking out weapon emplacements and other vital points in fiery explosions.  
  
As they moved beyond the Kromagg ship, Jarod's voice lightened considerably. "I'm picking up major reduction in their power readings!"  
  
"We've scored multiple direct hits on the positions Jarod laid out," Angel confirmed. "They've got a lot of hull breaches."  
  
"Power fluctuations increasing," Jarod said. "Their weapons are going offline. I think we did it.... their shield grid has overloaded completely and is taking their electrical system with it."  
  
"Put me on, then," Robert said.  
  
"Opening a channel."  
  
Robert waited for the confirmation tone before beginning. "This is Captain Dale to Kromagg ship. Listen, you're crippled. We don't want to hurt you. Just stand down and we can work together to get out of..."  
  
"I'm picking up an energy spike in their systems." Jarod's voice turned tense. "And a neutrino spike. I... I think they're bringing their IU drive system online."  
  
Robert looked back and nodded harshly at Angel, who nodded a reply and started firing again. "Listen, please!", Robert pleaded. "If you activate that drive, you could doom us all, and untold worlds beyond us! Your own homeworld might be destroyed! Just work with us and we can all go home..."  
  
"I can't seem to knock their IU drive out," Angel said. "They keep transferring power and..."  
  
"Neutrinos are at critical level. I'm picking up a wormhole formation!"  
  
"Whatever you have to do, stop it!", Robert shouted. "Whatever you have to..."  
  
All Jarod could say was "Too late" as the red wormhole formed along the bow of the stricken Kromagg ship It tried to accelerate toward it.  
  
It never got to the wormhole. Energy spiked around it and lashed out in all directions, including that of the Kromagg ship. Within seconds it was blown apart.  
  
  
  
  
Cat and I were about to enter the secondary hatch, having gone the long way around with the sounds of Meridina's desperate battle with Malgus ringing in our ears. I finished opening the hatch when the wave of pure nausea washed over me. Everything felt... wrong. Unnatural. Twisted and distorted.  
  
My face showed my discomfort. Cat looked from where she was starting to climb in. "What is it?", she asked.  
  
Even as she did, I realized I knew. I could feel the... wrongness of the space-time around us. "We're too late," I muttered.  
  
"Doctor?" Caterina slid back out and looked at me with a worried expression. "What's wrong?"  
  
"We're too late, Cat," I repeated. "The space-time bubble is expanding. Our plan won't work."  
  
Her face paled. "Are you sure? I mean..."  
  
"i can feel it," I said. "I can feel the space-time filling with energy. I... I think the Kromagg ship was destroyed, or tried to activate its interuniversal drive. But either way, it's causing the bubble to expand. We're going to start taking in planets and stars and even more ships...."  
  
Cat looked terrified for a moment. But a look came to her hazel eyes. I could she was still terrified, having seen Red Court vampires and drugged up Trolls and a powerful Sith Lord who had tried to strangle her to death. But there was something else there. A spark.  
  
No, not a spark. A flame.  
  
Cat... she wasn't ready to give up.  
  
I felt one of her hands gently take mine. "It's not too late," she said. "We'll still find a way to stop this."  
  
"I'm not sure there is any way, not without..." I swallowed. Could I do it? Could I say it?  
  
Could I explain how the only option left was to destroy the _Aurora_ , and perhaps everyone aboard her, to save Reality?  
  
I didn't want to have to sacrifice the _Aurora_ crew, not here and now, not when they had so many grand accomplishments awaiting them in their futures. I couldn't bring myself to that thought.  
  
It wasn't right.  
  
 _It wasn't fair._  
  
"We'll find a way," Caterina urged, impassioned tears in her eyes. "I know we will. Please, come and help us. Together we can do this! I can't let it end here, Doctor! Please! Not when there's so much more for me to see! So many things I have to discover out here! I... my time can't run out here!"  
  
I took in a breath.  
  
And... I smiled.  
  
Because... I could imagine my TARDIS saying the same thing.  
  
"Yes," I said. I pushed aside what I had been thinking. All of the rules of how these things are supposed to work, the rules that said that the _Aurora_ and _Koenig_ had to be destroyed, and soon, to ensure the bubble collapsed. The rules that told me that I was being foolish and selfish, that I was going to endanger creation to save not even a thousand people.  
  
The rules said I couldn't do this any other way.  
  
But I'm the Doctor. _Nobody_ tells me what the rules are. No, _not even the rules themselves._  
  
I felt my mind race, options presenting themselves, the exotic nature of our predicament forcing me to expand my considerations as I tried to imagine remedies that the rules dismissed as unsafe or unlikely. "Take me to Main Engineering!"  
  
"Sure." She noticed my lifting spirit and smiled. "What is there?"  
  
"Among other things?" I felt my smile grow. "A miracle worker. Because right now, we need a miracle."  
  
And I intended to have one.  
  
  
  
  
On the bridge of the _Aurora_ , Robert was watching the effects of the ill-planned Kromagg escape attempt. The Kromagg ship had been blasted to bits by the energy release of their slider drive. And where there was once just starless blackness in the artificial space-time, now riotous colors were criss-crossing it, all from the point where the Kromaggs had tried to generate a wormhole. "Jarod, that light show..."  
  
"It's all the energy from the Kromagg ship's failed jump," Jarod answered. "The pocket's growing and so is the instability."  
  
Robert swallowed. "Can we activate the warp engines? That will collapse the pocket."  
  
"Not anymore," Jarod sighed. "The pocket's growing too big."  
  
" _What if we fired our warp field at the same time?_ " Zack asked over the comm line to his ship, the _Koenig_.  
  
Jarod ran the numbers. "It's possible, if we do it within the next ten minutes. _Koenig_ will need to be toward the other end of the bubble to ensure the effect is wide-scale enough."  
  
" _On our way._ "  
  
Robert pressed the intercom key on his chair. "Bridge to Cat. How far are you from deflector control?"  
  
" _We're on our way to Main Engineering now_ ," she answered. " _The Doctor says the old plan won't work now._ "  
  
"Is there a new plan, yet?"  
  
There was a brief pause. " _We'll know when we get there!_ ", I shouted back.  
  
"You've got...." Robert looked to Jarod, who mouthed a number at him. "About twenty minutes. Otherwise we'll have no choice but to power the warp drives to destroy this bubble."  
  
" _We heard you_ ," Cat said.  
  
  
  
  
Cat led me into Main Engineering. It was a rather impressive site; with its large ship status master display, numerous secondary ones, and of course the banks of naquadah reactors that powered the vessel's main systems. Numerous beings were present, about half of them Human or at least Human-looking, but with several Dorei of varying complexions and some members of an avian species. Alakins, I thought. Marvelous people, those Alakins.  
  
And they were all listening to the same man. He was a bit on the stout side, given his advanced age, a head of gray hair and a gray mustache to go with it. Given his preference for the engineering uniform with a black vest, well, I would know that face anywhere regardless. "Ah, Mister Scott, an enormous pleasure!", I called out. "I always meant to tell you I enjoyed that bottle of Aldeberan whiskey we shared at Cayere Station!"  
  
That got me a look. "Sir, I dinnae think we've met before," he answered in that always-enjoyable Scots accent.  
  
"Oh, right. Different fifth dimensional track. So sorry," I quickly said. "Forgot about that. Anyway!" I clapped my hands together. "We need a miracle, Mister Scott, and as you are the resident miracle worker I thought it best to start with you. And don't even start with that whole 'I cannae change the laws of physics', because we both do that frequently enough."  
  
Scott stared at me for a moment. "I'm a bit busy, sir, if ye might notice. I'm not sure what can be done for ye."  
  
"Well, it's too late for my original plan to shunt this entire pocket into subspace. It's far too big. And if we let it stay, it'll start tearing space-time apart. Right now our only choice is to allow that to happen or to fire up the warp drives and collapse the space-time bubble with them, which would destroy everything in the bubble." I clapped my hands together. "But I prefer to believe that with the two of us and this fine young lady-" I appropriately indicated Cat "-we might determine a solution. First, do we have any readings from the bubble? That could be rather useful..."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our narrator races to find a way to save the Aurora without causing a multiversal catastrophe.

"....see, it willnae work," Scott lamented, indicating the simulation. "We cannae cause a sufficient contraction tae th' space-time pocket with th' power we have left."  
  
"What if we modified the warp drive to...."  
  
"I'm tellin' ye, it cannae work like that!", Scotty insisted. "Ye'll blow my wee bairns tae pieces and there's nae a thing tae be done about it!"  
  
"Warp drives can be rebuilt, Mister Scott, and more easily than people or universes," I replied, looking over the specific data on the _Aurora_ 's rather impressive warp assembly. She was certainly a sprinter, utilizing four warp nacelles in a flat X arrangement. The warp field she could generate in the short term was quite powerful. Perhaps too powerful, for the purpose I had in mind.  
  
"What if we... I don't know, channeled tetryons into the warp field when it generates?", Cat asked.  
  
"I ken what ye're thinkin', lass, but it willnae do a bit of good. Not in this kind of artificial space-time."  
  
"We're approaching this the wrong way," I said, as I noticed a new arrival come in from the port side entrance. Another young lady, with slightly frizzy dark hair that she kept in a pony tail. She wore one of their uniforms with the same beige coloring that Jarod and Barnes had been wearing on the bridge; engineering/operations then.  
  
I do so love the colors for branch idea. No need to look for little accoutrements to the uniform.  
  
"Lucy!" Cat went up to her. I could see she had a small cut on her neck and her pulse pistol was in her hand. "Are you alright?"  
  
"I'll live," replied Lucy Lucero. As I recalled, she was one of the original crew recruited by Robert and his merry cohort back at the beginning of their extraordinary journey. Well, extraordinary by some standards, says the multiverse-traveling Time Lord. Or Human-turned-Time Lord. Whichever. "There were some men heading this way that looked like they came out of a Renaissance festival. But I'm pretty sure the swords were real. The crossbow was." She touched the wound on her neck and winced. "I got out of the way just in time."  
  
"Weird," Cat said. "Any sign of who they were?"  
  
"One of them was wearing this nasty insignia of a flayed man," Lucy said. "I wasn't really looking to ask them about it."  
  
"Yes," I muttered. "Given the way things are going, that was likely one Roose Bolton. Nasty fellow. I once showed up at a wedding where he and the host were planning on murdering some of the guests. Terrible etiquette, made me rather cross with him. Of course, he was cross right back, and with that crossbow he nicked you with, I imagine."  
  
At that point, I was seriously starting to wonder what was going on. Everything coming through was from a cosmos I had visited. That couldn't be coincidence.  
  
"Well, I suppose it's a good thing I was carrying my pulse pistol," Lucy said. "So, Jarod says this is urgent?"  
  
"We've got maybe ten minutes before the space-time bubble becomes too large to collapse or reverse," Cat said. "And right now the only way to get rid of it is to fire up our warp field and the _Koenig_ 's."  
  
Lucy frowned. "But we're inside of it."  
  
"Aye lass." Scotty nodded grimly. "That's what we're tryin' tae get around."  
  
"Well, I'm not sure what I can think of that you three and Jarod can't," Lucy admitted.  
  
"It might not be technical answers we need, not so much as intuition." I looked at her. I had the feeling I knew more about her potential than she did at the moment.  
  
"Well..." Lucy sighed and seemed to think. "How does this work? I mean, space-time as we know it shouldn't be able to exist here. It's entirely artificial."  
  
"Yeah, that's the problem," Cat said. "It's why it's going to start ruining normal space-time if we don't stop it. But the only way we can do that right now will destroy us too."  
  
Lucy shook her head. "Well, maybe there's something else we can do. I mean, with the space-time being this small, maybe we can do something with the time part?" She looked at Scotty. "I mean, you told me about how you once cold-started the _Enterprise_ 's warp engines and caused it to move backwards in time."  
  
"Aye," Scotty said. "But that's not somethin' I can just conjure up, lass. The system's too different."  
  
"Yeah, but...." Lucy frowned. "I don't know, I just think that's the best approach to take."  
  
"If we had more time we could examine it," Cat said, "but we don't have enough time. We need something that can work now." Cat looked at me. My silence had undoubtedly become evident. "Doctor?"  
  
I admit I was deep in thought. Lucy's remarks were the cause. Not just what she said, but that she said them. There was something about the idea....  
  
And then I thought of everything else going on. And in a moment of insight... _it all made sense_. I _knew_. I knew why all of these things were coming into this space-time bubble.  
  
And I knew what had to be done to solve it, and to save the _Aurora_ and her crew in the process.  
  
"The TARDIS," I said. "The TARDIS is the key." I pulled out the remote control from my pocket and used it to summon the TARDIS. It materialized into the open space on the engineering deck floor, between the main control console for Engineering and the Master Systems Display for the ship. "Okay,," I said, "think of it. Your ship forms an interuniversal jump point with that lovely Darglan technology you have. As you go through, you intersect the sixth-dimensional path of the TARDIS. The resulting collision collapses the jump point, but the interaction with the TARDIS' dimensionally-transcedental field creates this big wobbly pocket of fake space-time in the transdimensional barrier. Have I lost anyone?"  
  
"Not really," Cat said. "I mean, we already established that."  
  
"I know, best to start from the beginning though, see where the facts flow." I clapped my hands together. "Now, consider this! Everything we've faced on the ship has come from places I've been before, people I've interacted with."  
  
Cat looked at me, realization coming into her cute hazel eyes. "It's linked," she said. "It's... your ship, it's the... the catalyst. Something in it is causing these old connections, is using our current location in the trans-dimensional barrier to... to... _bridge_ to other locations!"  
  
Lucy exchanged a look with Scotty. "I don't get it," she admitted.  
  
Scotty shook his head... and then stopped. A look of realization came over his face. "Th' bubble is bonded tae your ship, Doctor. That's th' key!"  
  
"I still don't..."  
  
"We don't have to destroy the bubble," Cat said. "We could... I don't know... alter it, undo it somehow. We manipulate the time part. Right, Doctor?"  
  
"Exactly!", I crowed, stepping into the TARDIS. I could see her lights were dimmer than usual, some completely out, just as some of the control console was still dark. She had not repaired fully yet. That wasn't surprising, since her access to the Time Vortex was severely curtailed, robbing her of necessary energy. "Alright, listen, I need to set up a power transfer system. We're going to use your ship to give my ship a jump start."  
  
"And then..?"  
  
I turned back to Cat, my grin wide with the manic glee I often got when thinking my way out of tough spots. "And then, my dear Cat.... we get to the _fun part_!"  
  
"An' just what wid ye be plannin' with my bairns, Doctor?"  
  
"Time, Mister Scott!", I proclaimed. "I'm going to repeat your feat at Psi 2000. I'm going to shift us back in time!"  
  
Now you're going to ask what the big deal was. My TARDIS is a time machine, after all. It could always go back in time.  
  
But not back in its own time. Not back against its own timestream. The TARDIS and Time Lords create Fixed Points by their very presence, particularly in reference to themselves. I cannot undo my own actions or events, you see.  
  
At least... not until today.  
  
With no better alternatives presenting themselves, Scotty ordered his engineering crew to begin the process of setting up a power transfer system to shift the energy coming from the _Aurora_ 's banks of naquadah reactors into the TARDIS. Cat followed me into the TARDIS, curiosity and bewilderment written all over her face. "Time travel?!", she asked me.  
  
"Oh, that I do all the time," I answered.  
  
"But... causality... paradoxes and..."  
  
"Deal with them too, occasionally." I looked at her, grinning my maniac grin. "That's why they call me a _Time_ Lord."  
  
"So time travel... it's not just a theoretical thing. I mean, the Darglan had entries about some temporal issues, but..."  
  
I shook my head. "Oh, this is a shame, Cat. If only I had time to explain everything your geeky brain craves to know. Unfortunately... I'm afraid that's not quite possible."  
  
"So, how does it work for you? I mean, you can't interfere in your own past, right?"  
  
"Not unless I want time to go splort," I answered. "But, that's the beauty of it. Think a moment, Cat. Where are we?"  
  
"We're..." She stopped. And she really put everything into thinking about it. "We're in the trans-dimensional barrier."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"A space-time pocket formed in the barrier." The look on Caterina's face changed to show bewilderment and then some realization. "Where space-time... doesn't normally exist. Where it _shouldn't_ exist."  
  
"Right!... mostly, anyway, close enough for what we're doing." I started twisting knobs on the TARDIS, preparing it for what was to come next.  
  
"So.... if space-time shouldn't exist... then there's no anchoring effect. We're _outside_ causality." Cat's face brightened. "We're _outside causality!_ "  
  
"Relative to normal space-time, yes," I replied.  
  
"So there is no paradox if you throw yourself back in time and undo our collision. No collision, no space-time pocket!" Cat did a little, enthusiastic hop. "That's... I never imagined! We're able to do that?!"  
  
"Oh yes!", I crowed. And, well.... okay, a little white lie. I still wasn't 100% it would work, after all. "You'll go on your merry way, get to keep traveling, seeing new things!"  
  
Cat squeed. Literally. It was this shrill, happy noise that was almost literally "Squee!". But then she stopped and her face fell. "But... that means... I won't remember you, will I? Our meeting will be undone."  
  
I turned back to her and felt the somber expression come to my face as I did. I forced myself to nod. She was too smart to accept a lie.  
  
"Will... will you remember me?", she asked, sadness evident.  
  
At that, I smiled sadly. "Cat." I nodded. "I don't think I could _ever_ be able to forget you." I went up and gave her a big hug. "I'll always remember you. My TARDIS, she'll make sure of it."  
  
"Yes, I will," Cat said. Or rather... her voice said. Cat pulled away from me, her eyes wide, and she followed my eyes to where she was standing. Or rather, an illusion of her, a holographic projection, smiling with dimples and everything, in a "I'm a Geek Princess!" t-shirt and skirt that showed off thin, cute legs. "Hello, Caterina," my TARDIS said, in Cat's voice. "It's so wonderful to finally meet you."  
  
"W-who a-are...."  
  
"I'm the Doctor's TARDIS," she answered. "And he is my Doctor."  
  
Cat turned back to me. "H-how? W-why?"  
  
I smiled and leaned in close. "Time Lord stuff. My little secret." I winked. "Now, you'd better get to the bridge and let the Captain in on our plan, eh? We'll need you monitoring things at your station."  
  
"R-right..." She forced a smile, but I could see she was still bewildered and astounded. "But... will I-I ever see you again?"  
  
"I'm not sure. We're from different fifth dimensional tracks, TARDIS doesn't like traveling those lines," I answered. "However, I can promise you something."  
  
"What?"  
  
I kept my smile, but let it turn gentle and reassuring. "One day, Cat, you _will_ meet the Doctor. And it will change your life _forever_."  
  
Cat nodded and swallowed. "Right. One day." She turned and left the TARDIS.  
  
I looked back to where the TARDIS projection had been, but she was gone. So I turned to the control center. "Couldn't help yourself, eh?"  
  
I was answered with a little giggle.  
  
At that point, Lucy and Scotty appeared at the door with the relevant connectors. "Come along, I need them here and.... over here."  
  
I helped them fit them on. Once they were in place Scotty went to the door and shouted "Turn 'em on, lads!"  
  
There was brief commotion in engineering and then power began to flow into the TARDIS engine.  
  
I watched the readings show the TARDIS' power levels pick up. Even a battery of naqia reactors wasn't much compared to the power levels of a TARDIS, but it was enough for me to kickstart another vital system.  
  
With the power flowing into it, the self-repair systems kicked into high gear. I watched, grinning, while her lights returned to normal and as the consoles came back to life. "There we are, girl," I muttered. "Drink your fill. We have some magic to do."  
  
"We've only got a few minutes before the time-space bubble reaches critical size," Lucy said from outside of the TARDIS. "What do we do next?"  
  
"For one thing, make sure _Koenig_ is on her way back in. Then rig your deflector dish to channel a chroniton beam at the TARDIS at my mark. Oh, and..." I looked up as I reached for the three-dimensional flight controls. "Clear a path to the nearest airlock. Can't do an instant shift from inside the airlock."  
  
"Right. We'll clear the nearest lift tube for you, it'll take you straight to the fighter hanger."  
  
"Very good." I nodded and disconnected the power transfer connectors from the TARDIS. Lucy and the engineering team pulled them out. Once they were clear of the TARDIS door I started flying her through the corridors. Along the way I passed a few familiar faces, the most frightening of which was a bear. Well, okay, not just a bear, but a radioactive power armor-clad, acid-spewing k-bolt slinging Bragulan.  
  
Long story about those lot. Suffice to say they're very nasty and don't like "Hew-mons" very much. And they liked me even less.  
  
I found the turbolift shaft, which Lucy and Scotty had opened remotely for me. As I shot through the shaft I saw signs that the ship's systems were starting to stabilize, at least; Caterina was likely to be able to get to the bridge directly along a turbolift without trouble.  
  
I emerged onto the fighter deck, avoided running into a damaged space fighter, and shot out the aft port that they used for landings. From my viewer I was able to get a nice, long look at the _Aurora_. In the distance, by my instruments, _Koenig_ was returning. She would be in range soon enough, at least, given how she was pushing her engines.  
  
Well, time to get to work. I moved the TARDIS to a spot off _Aurora_ 's bow and triggered my comm system, allowing a visual link. I could see the entire _Aurora_ bridge. Much to my surprise, Julia was back in her seat, looking a little haggard but no worse for wear. Caterina was at science, where she belonged. "Alright everyone, did Cat give you the game plan?"  
  
" _She did_ ," Robert confirmed. " _Whenever you're ready, Doctor._ "  
  
"Right." I hit a few more buttons and fired up the TARDIS engine. "Lay those chronitons on me.... _now!_ "  
  
Jarod began operating his console. " _Triggering chroniton pulse._ "  
  
The _Aurora_ 's deflector dish lit up with blue energy and a solid pulse of the same color shot out, blanketing the TARDIS. I looked on the instruments as the chronitons filled the TARDIS engine, hopefully giving me enough oomph to manage the backward shift in time. I pulled the main lever and listened to her began to _VWORP_ once again.  
  
"Increase the rate," I said, "I'm still not getting the levels I need for the transference."  
  
" _Increasing rate._ "  
  
For several seconds we tried that rate, and then raised it. Every time we got closer to what we needed, but it felt like the goal was still just a smidgen too far away. I furrowed my brow. "Of course," I muttered. "The space-time bubble, it's taking a bit from the energy release, every time we hike the rate the bubble grows a bit more, setting the target we need higher."  
  
" _So you're saying it can't be done?_ ", Julia asked.  
  
"It still can be, but it's not as efficient as I hoped. We're going to need more power."  
  
" _We're already past our safe limits over here_ ," Jarod said. "The deflector can't sent out more chronitons.[/i]"  
  
" _A good thing we're here_." Zachary Carrey's voice came over the line next. I looked over to see _Koenig_ come up to the TARDIS from another angle. " _Magda, begin chroniton pulse._ "  
  
More energy flowed out, and the TARDIS engine drank it up. I watched us get closer and closer to the threshold.  
  
....but we were still just a bit short. Just a bit.  
  
" _We're at our max now_ ," Zack said. " _we can't produce any more._ "  
  
" _We're going to blow out the dish if we hike it any more_ ," Barnes protested from _Aurora_.  
  
"Just a little more," I urged.  
  
" _We can't!_ "  
  
" _Actually, we can_ ," I heard Cat suggest. She looked back from her station. "We can channel other emitters to send out chronitons."  
  
Robert looked at her. " _Such as?_ "  
  
Jarod's head went up. " _The phaser arrays._ "  
  
And that, in turn, prompted Barnes to turn. " _What? How? Aren't they set up straight to the phaser cores?_ "  
  
" _But the phaser cores are connected to the rest of our power systems,_ " Caterina pointed out.  
  
" _And we can send chronitons down the plasma stream._ "  
  
" _Are ye daft, lad?!_ " Scotty's voice came over their intercom. " _Ye'll blow out our plasma conduits!_ "  
  
" _We just need them for a few seconds,_ ", Jarod replied. " _The longer we wait, the more time we'll need to focus them._ "  
  
At that I nodded. "He's right. If both ships do that it'll work."  
  
" _It's our best shot._ " Robert nodded. " _Get it started._ "  
  
" _Aye. Triggering it... now._ "  
  
"Koenig _here. We're doing the same._ "  
  
I found a smirk coming to my face. It looked like Angel was getting to shoot me after all.  
  
I watched and waited. After a couple of seconds Angel's hands went to her board. "Locking on and firing!"  
  
" _Firing!_ "  
  
Solid beams of chroniton energy erupted from several of the bow-facing phaser strips on the _Aurora_ , joined by the pulses coming from _Koenig_ 's pulse phaser cannons. i watched my display as the particle flow went up.  
  
Closer... closer....  
  
" _We're getting warnings from the plasma conduits,_ " Barnes warned. " _Starboard conduit is about to go out._ "  
  
" _Switching to backups_ ," Jarod declared.  
  
" _This had better work...!_ ," Angel added.  
  
_So close..._  
  
I briefly looked at the other display again. Cat saw me do so on the other end. nodded to me and smiled. " _Goodbye Doctor_ ," she said. " _I'm looking forward to meeting you again. Even if I won't remember you._ "  
  
"The same here," I said. "There's a Multiverse of wonders waiting for you, Caterina Delgado. Go enjoy them."  
  
And I felt tears in my eyes as I said so. A part of me... was jealous. Jealous of the fact that I wouldn't get to show them to her.  
  
And, at the same time, profoundly happy she would get to see those wonders. And that she would indeed get to grow into the marvelous scientist and explorer I knew she would become.  
  
The same thought was for all of them. Even if I didn't remember my connection to them, I knew enough about them to know what was awaiting them. It wouldn't always be easy. They would have to endure through trials, defeats, and crises of faith and conscience. They would stumble and they would even fall.  
  
But they would overcome.  
  
And they would do it together.  
  
After all, they were a family.  
  
"Goodbye everyone," I said. "And good luck!"  
  
" _The same to you, Doctor_." Robert nodded and grinned. " _Good luck out there._ "  
  
And there was a green light on my other screen.  
  
The chroniton levels were at optimum level.  
  
I pulled the lever.  
  
And with the help of the crews of the _Starship Aurora_ and _Starship Koenig_ , thanks to the extraordinary situation that had led to our meeting, I did the impossible.  
  
The TARDIS raced back against its own timestream.  
  
It was an interesting experience. This wasn't like the time I pushed against the timestream anchor to try and aid Korra against the Red Lotus. Even as the TARDIS moved smoothly, for a moment I saw it all again. Just for a moment, mind you.  
  
And then... the TARDIS jolted and landed. I sucked in a breath. I hadn't realized I'd been holding it, waiting in anticipation to see if it had worked.  
  
But it had.  
  
Now I only had one thing left to check. It would fade shortly, given it had been erased from existence, but for just a few more moments my connection to the _Aurora_ might still persist. I went to the communications station and used it to patch back in to the camera feed from their bridge.  
  
They were there. Like when I had landed on the bridge. A look crossed their faces. " _Jarod, that ride felt a little bumpy_ ", Julia said. " _Was there something wrong with the jump drive?_ "  
  
" _Nothing I can see... wait. Looks like there was a slight chroniton spike of some sort in the jump point._ "  
  
" _Did we time shift or something?_ ," Caterina asked.  
  
" _Well, spatial destination is on target. We arrived at Leytam, Universe M4P2, as planned. Chronometer check verifies we haven't drifted temporally._ "  
  
" _Still, maybe you and Scotty should inspect..._ "  
  
The video dissolved into static a moment later. The connection was gone.  
  
"Doctor?"  
  
I turned and watched Liara enter. She had on a one piece bathing suit of green and purple coloring, rather flattering if you ask me. I should probably take a picture of it so she can show it to Shepard when she goes back. "Hrm?", I asked.  
  
She gave me a confused look. "Why are you smiling like that?"  
  
"Hrm? What? Smiling? Oh, nothing, nothing really," I said.  
  
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I thought you were leaving me behind."  
  
"Oh, not at all," I lied. "Just.. checking some things."  
  
"Uh huh." Liara's tone showed how much she didn't believe me. "So that explains the cuts in your jacket?"  
  
I blinked and looked down. My suit jacket was torn from where the Red vampire had slashed at me. "Oh. Just... seeing if this one is worth salvaging."  
  
"It isn't," Liara said. "A good thing we had so many replicated. Anyway." She gave me a friendly smile. "Since time at the pool bores you so much, I just talked to an archeologist who's heading back to a dig site on the other side of the planet. They're excavating some interesting finds over there."  
  
"Really? Oh. Sure, sounds lovely," I answered.  
  
"Let me get my things," she said, "and I'll be right back."  
  
After Liara left I took in a sigh and walked over to the stairs, where I let myself sit down. The entire experience had left me drained and, frankly, I could probably use a vacation. A stop at this dig site, and then maybe I would join Liara for a dip in the pool and some fresh sunshine. It would do me well...  
  
It would also let me have time to digest some... thoughts I had on this meeting. For one thing... it didn't make sense, why so many of the spatial tears - all of them possibly - had deposited beings or things that I had encountered previously. The Multiverse is so infinitely massive - ha! - that the chance of even one was fairly high. Having so many of them? That was... too much for coincidence. Something had _drawn_ them there. Something involving me or my TARDIS. Sort of like a reverse of how all the Cracks I had been finding had, with one exception, brought forth beings from the cosmos of Gallifrey.  
  
I wasn't sure why, but I had the deepest feeling I was going to want to know.  
  
Finally, there was that whole feeling I had when I met the bloke with the particle cannon. There was something so _familiar_ about Commander Kana...  
  
Kana? No, it was Kane. My brow furrowed at that. His name was definitely Kartr Kane.  
  
I blinked. I felt something... strange in my brain. Carter Kane was the man's name, I knew that. My memories are photographic. His name was Carter Kane.  
  
But in my mind, another name came out. Similar, but different. Different connotations.  
  
Kartr Kana.  
  
Kartr_Kana?  
  
I had thoughts. Some form of long distance communication. A meeting place on it, for people. And that name. Kartr_Kana.  
  
Where? Where had this come from? Why had my mind drawn that connection?  
  
Even as I thought that, I felt my mind grow fuzzy about it. About who or what Kartr_Kana was or what that name meant.  
  
Was it... the box?  
  
The door to the TARDIS opened and Liara came back in, wearing a brown leather jacket and khaki pants over her swimsuit, carrying bags on her left shoulder. She even had a fedora on her head. All she needed now was a whip and she'd look like Henry Jones Junior. Well, no, she'd be dressed like him... oi, you know what I mean. She gave me a look of intrigue. "Are you alright, Doctor?"  
  
"Oh, me?" I nodded. "Oh, yes, fine. Just thinking of some things." I jumped up to my feet. "So, give me the coordinates and I'll have us to the dig site in just a second!"  
  
She did so. And as I entered them, I put my thoughts to the side for the moment. I had more important things to do, like spending time with my Companion, and seeing new and interesting things.  
  
Just like Caterina would want to.  
  
And like my TARDIS loved, come to think of it. I imagined her standing here with me as I reached for the lever, and it was that thought that prompted me to shout "Tally ho!" when I yanked the lever.  
  
This had been, perhaps, my most bizarre adventure ever. Yes, even more bizarre than the times I'd visited Equestria, or the Discworld.  
  
I would come to find out that it had consequences for me far beyond the bizarre nature of the meeting, though. I had learned things. Things that would, when the time came, make everything clear.  
  
I had come one step closer to finding out what had been done to me so long ago, before I became the Doctor.  
  



End file.
